Anthem

My PS4 copy turned up yesterday and thanks to the day one patch being live yesterday i was able to play it for a bit of time and get a handle on it. i enjoyed the beta but found it quite hollow and empty, i think this is because half the game world was pretty much stripped out, and there was no context or story. If they had given people the first hour of the game for the beta i think impressions of the game would be a lot more favorable the opening few missions are pretty epic and im really enjoying what i've seen so far.

I've been following the press and negativity surrounding this release but one thing everyone seems to agree on is the core loop of flying shooting and using powers feels unique and is very fun. The story's ticking the right boxes its a bit cheesy in places but the characters and voice acting is top notch and so far so good, if it wasnt a bioware game i dont think it would be drawing so much criticism.

Ive found the world a joy to explore ruined temples, massive craggy cliffs and lush green landscapes with landmarks and points of interest peppered throughout. It looks really good in places (the lava effects and the lava scorpions in the first mission show how good the game can look) yet bits of the free-play area can look pretty bland at times.

With the day one patch in place i haven't noticed a lot of the issues that have been forming the majority of the complaint last week, loading into the forge took about 4 seconds and loading into missions took no longer than a minute, Mid level loads where in the 30-40 seconds range so not massively intrusive, better game design could of prevented this (Destiny's use of corridors hides the loading when going underground) i'm not sure why they couldn't implement that here.

So far its ticking the right boxes though I've heard end game isn't that strong with only a handful of strongholds (think destiny strikes) and the ability to replay missions on harder difficulty being the order of the day. I'm pretty much fine with a 15-20 hour campaign as quite frankly i don't want an all in compassing Destiny level of content that requires me to play this and nothing else. It's content drops, which look to be regularly scheduled and spaced out through the first year and will keep me coming back too.

A solid seven out of ten so far, if you do enjoy this sort of game id recommend picking it up.

Finished the story after four evenings of play, its all pretty meh with no real resolution build up or satisfying conclusion, and its extremely light on content. every mission is pretty much go here collect these things stand here there are no epic battles like in the opening cinematic no walkers crashing down in front of you like the E3 revel or anything dynamic really going on in the game world, its pretty sparse and empty if truth be told.

Enemy wise your shooting humanoid bugs and generic GI joe style masked baddies and turrets all the way, their is a small amount of variation in shield and weapons but they don't really stand out from each other. There's also a peppering of wildlife, scorpions, small wyverns and giant crabs Rino things and rabbits but a lot of it is not used very much.

It's boss game is the weakest I've seen in a looter, one giant Titan that can be frost ice or lighting, (they don't vary attacks and all use the same attack pattern) one medium tank walker thing, one spider boss and one end game boss. a lot of stuff is re-used over and over, the walker tanks are open world events as are the titans. These bosses are also used throughout out the story too with the titans being endgame sub bosses.

I've finished the game at lvl 19 and now have to replay the story or the 3 strongholds (think destiny strikes) to lvl up. Once at lvl 30 i can then play the story or strongholds at grand master 1 difficulty which will start giving me masterwork weapons. The entire end game is pointless at present as there is nothing to do but replay the same three bits of content over and over at higher and higher difficulty. Even destiny 1 launched with a unique endgame activity and loot pool this has none of that and at present will be exhausted content wise in about a week unless you have a real hankering to find a full set of masterwork weapons and mods.

The games still riddled with bugs too, take the titan bosses the projectiles they fire have a habit of getting stuck on walls when tracking you, this wouldn't be a problem but its hit box doesn't get stuck and will happily carry on towards you making you wonder how come an invisible hit just took off 90% of my health.

my current list of annoyances

my favorite friends tab default option is remove friend, the next option is block friend, why if their my favorite friends is remove or block the first two options?

deleting trash form your vault takes an age

where is my way-point marker on the map why cant i set custom way-points

why dose everyone in the tower have to tell me their life story

How come the colossus shield cant tank a fireball from the titan yet all the other classes can dodge and pretty much come out unscathed his lack of over shield makes him feel the weakest of all the classes at the moment as hes far to reliant on running into the middle of fights to pick up health.

why dose your javelin overheat at all during flight all it dose is make me have to land and wait a bit before flying on again.

Why is there a box poping up every five seconds blocking my thruster gauge telling me i'm out of the mission area if my friends are still in view. Why do you force me into loading screen and teleport me to them if i stop and pick up resources or investigate a world pick up.

Challenges are laughable in how mean they are, complete 100 public events being one that gets you 5000 coin, it takes 65000 to buy one legendary Armour set so its pushing you really hard into microtransations if you want any cosmetic items.

Not great to hear, tbh I'm expecting a small team to be tasked with putting out merely passable updates for Year 1 and most of 2 before this gets buried, the devs focusing on Dragon Age instead and leaving this behind

Last few days have really tested my patience I'm lvl 26 and have been for two evenings now, to get any of the decent weapons in this game you need to be lvl 30+ (you don't get a sniff of anything remotely interesting loot wise before then). The latest patches have completely ****ed the game it's gone from a pretty stable experience to an unstable buggy mess. The last two evenings of play I've been kicked from the game more times than I've finished missions, it has loot protection in place so you don't loose items but you don't gain XP so dont level up, it can crash right on the mission end screen too which is super frustrating.

One mission saw me load in without a Head, another threw up an energy wall that was supposed to keep us in the final area but prevented me and two of my team from reaching the last area of the mission. One guy was down in the mission area and the only way out of this mess was to force close the game. Another mission saw my radar refuse to load while asking me to use it to find clues, that was another force quit scenario. Another mission saw the game refusing to give us the next way point and refuse to recognize we had cleared an area, I've also had the game fail to load or load completely purple, I've had missions that refuse to load scenery.

It's like an early access game at present not a Full price AAA release I'm this close form just not bothering anymore life's to short to play ****e like this.

struck with this into end game to get my moneys worth, i have a pretty good selection of top tier gear now and i think i have a handle on how endgame plays. The main goal of endgame is getting first a fully master worked character then a fully kitted out legendary. there is 3 difficulty levels in end game with GM1 GM2 GM3 all these levels do is improve your drop chances in exchange for fighting harder enemy's. I cant currently run gm2 or 3 as most stuff tears me to pieces on gm1 still.

At the moment endgame consists of 3 missions, Tyrant mine is super easy and quite quick to run, the heart of darkness is long has two bosses and quite time consuming it's also just the final mission in the game, Temple of Scar has a chest a few minutes in so is currently being used for farming with most people dropping out after the first chest, its also quite a slog to the boss which is dull and time gated so not worth it.

Freeplay has at present a massive sprawling open map to explore but only one thing to do in it. (look for public events) these seem quite spaced out so its 90% searching 10% completing events. There is currently an event on called outlaw mayhem in freeplay that puts more outlaws on the map, there is no reason to kill the outlaw you find as there is no reward for doing so. likewise their is no reason to do the open world map dungeons as its three rooms of enemy's with no reward at the end. its baffling how unrewarding it is at present.

An hour of Freeplay netted me 0 masterworks where as a half hour stonghold guarantees a masterwork from the boss and has three chests. If i want to get decent gear endgame boils down to running the tyrant mine strike over and over if you want to properly maximize your time.